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Society tends to view overall flexibility as signs of a young, healthy and sporty body – a wet dream and gold standard we apparently should all be striving for. With the loud claims that “the splits keep you young” by media, it comes as no surprise that training to do splits became a fixture in the bucket lists and new years resolutions of many people.

But can everyone get into splits and how long does it usually take? I tried to check by testing my own flexibility and participating in a 30 day splits challenge.

Read further to find out why we stretch, is doing splits is good for you and how stretching for the whole month changed my body.

Why We Stretch & Benefits Of Stretching

What is truly intriguing about the topic is that the reason behind the obsession with flexibility and whether it has any actual health benefits for our bodies beyond all the likes on Instagram is still shrouded in mystery.

Post-workout stretching for developing body suppleness is a ritual religiously promoted by health websites and followed by many. Numerous times I caught myself lengthening muscles after the exercise just because I grew up knowing that stretching is quintessential to prevent muscle soreness and injury, promote blood flow and boost performance. Science though suggests that I’ve never been more wrong in my life.

That is because:

Stretching doesn’t prevent muscle soreness

Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is the pain that occurs and peaks a day or two after the intense exercise to which your body is not accustomed. Science is still not sure about the actual reason behind the DOMS, but there are a handful of popular techniques to reduce DOMS effect and even prevent it. From drinking more water to taking vitamin supplements and massage, stretching takes the cake.

As the myth persists, over the years research hasn’t shown that any of the mainstream methods hold true. For example, this 2002 review of 12 studies suggests that stretching before or after the exercise has small to no positive effect on the muscle soreness, despite the widespread belief.

Stretching doesn’t improve performance

Another popular belief states that stretching promotes the overall performance (e.g., can make you run faster). The available research suggests that stretching is not only inefficient in this regard but also might potentially decrease the performance in the first place.

Stretching doesn’t lower the risk of injury

The common argument about using stretching as a warm-up before exercise has been lost long ago as the studies proved its little to no effect on preventing injury. This 2014 review of the 25 trials involving 26 610 participants in total showed stretching doesn’t lower the risk of injury.

Though there is conflicting evidence that the elongated muscles promoted by stretching activity are less prone to be strained, but as this study concludes, it all depends on the “the type of stretching chosen, and the make-up of the stretch routine.”

So what does stretching actually do and why do we keep stretching in the first place?

“There are all sorts of people coming to my class,” says Yuliya Shevchenko, a trainer and a founder of a stretching studio Luna. “Students, IT guys, moms, artists. Lots of them join with the sole aim of learning to do splits… and as strange as it may sound, stop coming once they reach their goal.”

Yuliya says that those who don’t chase the splits come to a stretching class to stay in shape and get some movement after a day of sitting at a desk.

“I think that people enjoy being challenged. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in our class: we combine stretching with body balances common in yoga, build strength with planks and inversions, practice all sorts of twists and bonds. The feeling of easiness and pleasant trembling in your muscles after the class are good enough reasons to practice stretching.”

Thanks to science, we know for sure that stretching improves range of motion and increases flexibility. For an ordinary person, a limber body means better functional movement: so that you can effortlessly pick up things from the ground, stretch out your arms to take stuff from a high shelf, stay in balance when standing on one leg in a crowded bus, etc.

“Splits is an all-around complex exercise that requires diligent preparation and hard work with the body and essentially the ability to listen to it. Thus, the training and preparation to do splits are as important as the exercise itself.”

Yuliya assures that while working on the splits you not only improve the flexibility of hamstrings, thighs, and hips but also promote better blood circulation to the areas most affected by the sedentary lifestyle – a benefit which was backed up by studies and which shows promising results for the future of cardiovascular health.

However, unless you’re a dancer, gymnast, martial artist or similar, extreme flexibility to the point when you can get into oversplits makes no sense and has absolutely no benefits for the everyday activity.

Can Anyone Do Splits & The Dangers Of Stretching

Apparently, no matter how stiff you are, whether you’re a grandpa or an aging female, with the correct approach and plenty of time everyone is able to perform splits.

Some websites guide people into splits in 3 weeks or even 1 week, like this article, for example. Yet I wondered whether such a short timeframe is realistic even for a healthy sporty person.

“This is a number one question,” Yuliya smiles. “People are not robots, and like with everything, the time you’ll need for gaining necessary flexibility is highly individual. So many factors come into play: age, preparation, the frequency of stretching, the technique. ”

“Once I had a female client who was determined to get in the front splits in 6 weeks,” Yuliya tells Unhype. “She started with 7.8 inches distance from the ground and had 2 classes a week, one of which was private. Just imagine, it took her only 6 classes to get into the front splits! We both were head over heels. Others work for years and still can’t touch the ground. It’s a matter of persistence and understanding of why you want to do splits in the first place.”

Like any physical activity, the holy grail of flexibility comes with dangers. These mostly occur in the form of sprains and dislocations, and those with high natural flexibility are at the highest risk.

“Nearly as much as 25% of the population suffers from the hypermobility – a condition characterized by extremely flexible tendons and ligaments, which eventually leads to instability in joints,” Yuliya tells Unhype. “This category of people should avoid the so-called phenomenon of ‘sitting in the joints,’ for example, straightening arms in the elbow area or knees to the maximum, and focus on developing stability by combining stretching with strength building exercises that will help protect the joints from injuries. ”

The Results Of My 30-Day Splits Challenge

Just as inflexible people are sometimes faced with the stigma that they are not good enough for practicing yoga, those who actually do yoga for quite a while are automatically expected by the public to possess a limber and supple body that can easily be folded into an origami shape.

I’ve been doing yoga on and off for several years now. Despite being pretty flexible, I still can’t do the splits. In my defense, I have never been actually working towards this goal before. Moreover, there are absolutely no grounds to assume that yoga in some way leads to splits. Flexibility is just among the many science-proven benefits of yoga and a pleasant ‘side effect’ rather than an ultimate goal.

I came across this 30-day challenge chart below on Instagram and used it for the most days of my journey to splits. All of the poses are widely known and used in yoga, so it looked like a good idea to incorporate the longer stretches into my yoga routine. The poses also work on a range of areas needed for the splits: hamstrings, hip flexors, inner thighs, lower back, etc.

The general rule of the given challenge was to perform five basic stretches (1-5) on a daily basis while adding one more stretch starting from day 6. So on the first 5 days of the challenge, I would need to do stretches 1-5. On the 6th day, stretches 1-5 and 6. On the 7th day, 1-5 and 7 and so on.

Warm up is necessary before every stretching session, and every pose must be held around from 30 seconds to one minute.

Week One

My splits was practically non-existent at the start of the challenge: with 8.6” on the right side and nearly 7.8” on the left one. Mind that this was my cold flexibility and I could usually force myself to sink a bit deeper after a yoga session. I felt super stiff, and literally clinging my jaw to hide the sensation of the complete discomfort.

I didn’t have the habit of stretching every day before the challenge, so it was hard at first to squeeze the stretching for splits into my schedule. Twice during the week, I prepared to sleep and realized that I’d missed my stretching session. Though I managed to get out of bed and diligently complete the duty. Stretching late in the evening turned out to be more comfortable than in the first half of the day because fascia is more ‘stretchable’ after all the walking and day activity.

Every session I held the stretches for one minute. One minute wasn’t a long time for a pose which felt more or less comfortable for me such as Low Lunge. While others, such as Single-Leg Forward Bend made me suffer, so I used two yoga blocks for better alignment.

I tried to be as mindful as possible and avoid pushing myself too deep into the poses – not totally slacking off, but steering from painful and severely unpleasant sensations.

Apart from stretching challenge, I worked out three times this week including a glutes-oriented workout, a yoga, and Pilates sessions (both of which involved a bit of additional stretching).

Week Two

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Same applies to flexibility. I haven’t noticed much of a difference in my body, except for a slightly improved range of motion in my hips.

I didn’t feel good on some of the days, and it clearly reflected on the quality of my stretches. The thoughts that maybe I’m not working hard enough crawled into my head – and this is a clear sign of wrong thinking, which resulted in me spraining my right inner thigh near the groin area, thankfully not serious. I’ve had this issue a few months before during squatting with weight at the gym. Then, I had to forget about any leg work for 2 weeks. This time it was a really minor overstretch, a reminder that rushing your way into deep stretches doesn’t end up well. The sprain didn’t impede my journey to splits, but I pressured myself less into the inner thighs stretches.

For a long time, I was also thinking about setting up a short morning routine just for the sake of limbering my body. Thus I added 15 minutes of morning yoga with some dynamic stretches and sun salutations to my daily stretching session.

As usual, I worked out nearly 4 times during that week, mostly focusing on yoga.

Week Three

There was little to no progress during the second week.

The third week though was truly revolutionary. With an everyday morning routine and a stretching session as well as regular workouts (yoga, Pilates, leg and glutes exercises), I felt as limber as never before.

Getting into splits was so much easier when compared to day 1. I haven’t experienced any weird pain and felt that I could go even deeper after a few minutes. Clearly, my splits was far off on the horizon, but it didn’t seem unattainable after all.

Week Four

Inspired by the miraculous boost in the flexibility during my 3rd week, I pressured myself into split stretches harder than ever.

Alas, with no result.

It felt as if my body had reached its limit and even if there was some progress, it was close to null. I got a bit discouraged and skipped one day, but hopefully with no harm to my flexibility. Instead of stretching that day I had a long 90 minute Yin Yoga session which focused on hip and hamstrings opening.

During the last week, the weather turned colder than usual. There is a common belief that stretching in hot temperature helps you lengthen (that’s how hot yoga actually works), though the fact wasn’t backed up by science in any way. Without digging deep into research, from my experience, it’s much easier to stretch on warm sand or even sunshine covered floor than on the ice cold wooden surface when it’s approximately 15 degrees around you. My body just naturally got super stiff and seemed to work on keeping itself warm rather than flexing to get into splits.

Final Result

I managed to decrease the distance to the ground – from 8.6” to 5.1” on the right side and from 7.8” to 4.3” on the left but wasn’t able to get into splits – even after 30 days of consistent stretching complemented by regular workouts and morning routines that include muscle lengthening.

Instead, my body did become more limber and flexible. My nagging upper back and shoulder pain almost disappeared – a miracle that I cannot attribute entirely to stretching but rather to an increase in daily movement and activity or inexplicable whim of destiny. Apart from that, some yoga poses turned out to be not as challenging as they used to be as my body grew to be more supple.

Though one of the most significant advantages of the challenge for me is that I started doing yoga every single day. It inevitably takes dedication and time, but the way the new habit makes me feel is indescribable.

Will I continue to stretch for splits? Maybe. However, this will never be my final goal. One of the most flexible women on this planet and one of my idols Kino MacGregor who has been doing yoga for years still sometimes struggles with pancake splits so what can I expect from myself?

The chart I used as a guide proved to be a good starter but seemed to be more oriented towards front splits rather than the middle; therefore it lacked some essential poses for opening the hips such as Frog or Lizard. For those who would like to follow the same stretching routine after ending the challenge, I’d suggest identifying tight areas in their body and instead of following the strict order of poses in the chart, focus on stretches that work on your stiff muscles.

I really like the quote from Paul Ingraham, a health writer and an ingenious man behind the painscience.com: “Fitness and health are not equivalent. You can be fit for a particular athletic pursuit, but that doesn’t mean you are a healthier person.”

Always define your priorities. If it is staying flexible and healthy, do not trust the challenges that promise to get you into splits quickly. Instead, use them as a guide or a tool to form a habit and create consistency in your practice.

Veronica is keen on exploring the stories that hide in the most unexpected of places. She enjoys thinking about the future we face and has strong opinions about different "isms" and how modern technology influences the globalized world.